The Vatican and the death penalty

[Titus]

I based my comment on a long history of Moslem terrorists doing just that starting with the attacks on the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. It is much more reasonable to believe that someone would have hijacked a jet or threatened to set off a bomb in order to free Hussein than it is to believe that no one would.

I don’t know where you get the idea that Saddam Hussein was a Muslim leader and that the radical Islamists of Al-qaeda, Hamas or Hizbollah would want to free him? He was a secular leader. That’s why the West supported him in the Iran-Iraq war. Your argument is not backed up by the facts: the people who might have tried to free him would be Baathists, and they don’t have the manpower or reach of Al-qaeda, Hizbollah or Hamas.

All we would have had to do was imprison him in a v. secure prison in Iraq or the US/ UK, or a neutral state, and never release him.

Moslem? No-one uses that term any more.

 

[pnewton]

1. You cannot execute someone based on what you think might happen.

Where do you get this idea? We never know the future for certain, yet the Catechism allows the death penalty when absolutely necessary for the defense of society, in agreement with 2000 years of Church teaching.

Isn’t that the problem? Shouldn’t reform and reconciliation be the main goals of prisons? What good does punishing someone do if they don’t feel remorse.

One of the goals, yes. That is the role of mercy. However, just like we can not pursue justice without considering the role of mercy, we also can not focus on mercy and rehabilitation and ignore justice.

Justice is as much an attribute of God that we are to emulate as mercy and is one of the four cardinal virtues. It is also the only reason the Bible mentions as the role of government in punishing the evil-doer, as ordained by God.

 

[estesbob]

I’m not referring to anyone here. I’m sure there are plenty of people here of whom the above is not the case. I’m talking specifically about our shepherds. I can’t help but feel that they have more concern for murderers than for the unborn.

Thats a very good point. There are lots of people who want to twist the catholic teaching on the death penatly to fit their political agenda while at the same time ignoring catholic teaching on abortion and homosexuality. I am sure that some in this thread who claim there is never an excuse to execute soemone also beleive there are many circumsatnces where its ok to kill an unborn child.

Am I correct? Is there anyone here who believes the death penalty should never be used but that that abortion is OK in some circumstances?

 

[frommi]

Am I correct? Is there anyone here who believes the death penalty should never be used but that that abortion is OK in some circumstances?

Not that I’m aware of…I’m yet to see anyone in these forums say abortion was ‘ok’.

The argument comes out of how that issue gets twisted around for political purposes.

Personally, I don’t want people having abortions and I don’t want the state executing prisoners.

 

[estesbob]

Not that I’m aware of…I’m yet to see anyone in these forums say abortion was ‘ok’.

The argument comes out of how that issue gets twisted around for political purposes.

Personally, I don’t want people having abortions and I don’t want the state executing prisoners.

I see you are parsing words again.I didnt ask if anyone thought abortion was “OK”. I asked if anyone thought that it should be allowed in any circumstances?

 

[frommi]

I see you are parsing words again.I didnt ask if anyone thought abortion was “OK”. I asked if anyone thought that it should be allowed in any circumstances?

I don’t think that’s the case here.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Right…because one life is more valuable than the other.

No, because one life is innocent and the other is not.

Because one life is a danger to society and the other is not.

The justifications for capital punishment are not present in the unborn.

 

[frommi]

No, because one life is innocent and the other is not.

Because one life is a danger to society and the other is not.

The justifications for capital punishment are not present in the unborn.

Rationalize this all you want…ending a life is to say that we are God and God is not.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Rationalize this all you want…ending a life is to say that we are God and God is not.

Rationalize this all you want… the Church **does **recognize the right to self defense, including collective self defense in the form of capital punishment and war. While the Church is rightfully concerned about both, the Church does not flatly condemn either.

 

[frommi]

Rationalize this all you want… the Church **does **recognize the right to self defense, including collective self defense in the form of capital punishment and war. While the Church is rightfully concerned about both, the Church does not flatly condemn either.

Ya see…I don’t think so…the church recognizes that at times there may be a need for such things…but not a right to them.

Can you imagine a church that purports that we have a ‘right to kill’?

That makes no sense.

Just becuase something is not flatly condemned does not mean that we can ignore the signs of the times and just go along with it because we don’t want it to cloud our vitrol about abortion.

The signs of the times are quite clear…capital punishment does not decrease crime, its more expensive than lifetime incarceration, and we are now learning that innocent people are being put to death.

But…please…keep rationalizing how you can defend one life but not another…we have a God who in the form of Jesus Christ was quite clear about loving the sinner…he stepped in and stopped the death penalty from occurring at least once in the Gospels…who are we exactly to not follow his example?

 

[fix]

Ya see…I don’t think so…the church recognizes that at times there may be a need for such things…but not a right to them.

2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Ya see…I don’t think so…the church recognizes that at times there may be a need for such things…but not a right to them.

A distinction withour a difference.

The Church most certainly does recognize a right to life – and also recognizes that inherent in the right to life is the right to self-defense.

2263 The legitimate defense of persons **and societies **is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not.”

(my emphasis)

Can you imagine a church that purports that we have a ‘right to kill’?

Ya see, that’s where you go wrong – you assume that self defense is about killing. It’s not – it’s about self-defense.

 

[frommi]

Ya see, that’s where you go wrong – you assume that self defense is about killing. It’s not – it’s about self-defense.

Killing in self defense (unintentionally to preserve ones own life) is quite a leap from 10 years of planning to give someone a lethal injection.

Similarly to the difference between a surgical procedure indirectly leading to the aborting of a fetus…quite different than procuring an abortion because you don’t want to have a girl.

Why do we want to deny the right to life to anybody? Love your enemy as yourself…and all that stuff…

 

[estesbob]

I don’t think that’s the case here.

In other words you wont answer.

 

[frommi]

In other words you wont answer.

If you’re asking me if I think there’s a good reason for an abortion…I do not.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Killing in self defense (unintentionally to preserve ones own life) is quite a leap from 10 years of planning to give someone a lethal injection.

You say it, but that doesn’t make it right.

The time is simply a function of our legal process, not inherent in the act of self defense.

Similarly to the difference between a surgical procedure indirectly leading to the aborting of a fetus…quite different than procuring an abortion because you don’t want to have a girl.

Correct – just as executing a duly-convicted heinous criminal is quite different from procuring an abortion because you don’t want to have a girl.

By the way, I agree only if you are talking about the excising of a fallopian tube in a tublar (ectopic pregnancy.) Other surgical procedure may well be sinful abortions.

Why do we want to deny the right to life to anybody? Love your enemy as yourself…and all that stuff…

Why do **you **want to deny the right to life to anybody? Because when we fail to act in self-defense and someone dies, we have surely denied the victim’s right to life.

 

[frommi]

Why do **you **want to deny the right to life to anybody? Because when we fail to act in self-defense and someone dies, we have surely denied the victim’s right to life.

You act like I’m suggesting that we keep killers on the street…lock em up…throw away the key…

As Bishop Cupich of Rapid City recently stated…the right to life is not contingent.

 

[vern_humphrey]

You act like I’m suggesting that we keep killers on the street…lock em up…throw away the key…

Please don’t make my arguments for me – I’m capable of making them myself.

I’m saying that “lock 'em up” is not a satisfactory solution. The proof is the number of people murdered annually in this country – many of them by people who would have been executed in an earlier day.

As Bishop Cupich of Rapid City recently stated…the right to life is not contingent.

And we must therefore uphold the right of self-defense, both individualy and collectively.

 

[garysibio]

You’re mixing two concepts…that’s part of the problem…

I understand the differences between the abortion issue and the death penalty issue. AFAIAC, abortion is worse. It seems to me that, if you are going to put the amount of effort into opposing the death penalty as some bishops do, they should at least forbid their priests from giving the Eucharist to politicians who vote pro-abortion. I’m not mixing concepts, I’m saying first things first.

 

[garysibio]

I don’t know where you get the idea that Saddam Hussein was a Muslim leader and that the radical Islamists of Al-qaeda, Hamas or Hizbollah would want to free him? He was a secular leader. That’s why the West supported him in the Iran-Iraq war. Your argument is not backed up by the facts: the people who might have tried to free him would be Baathists, and they don’t have the manpower or reach of Al-qaeda, Hizbollah or Hamas.

All we would have had to do was imprison him in a v. secure prison in Iraq or the US/ UK, or a neutral state, and never release him.

Moslem? No-one uses that term any more.

While you are correct in pointing out that Saddam was not a particularly religious person, he was helping the terrorists in quite substantial ways. At his execution the Iraqi officials did not want to take possession of him until the last moment because they were afraid someone might try to free him.

As far as using the word ‘Moslem,’ you are obviously quite wrong because I did just use it.